


No Such Thing as Perpetual Motion

by SwoodMaxProductions



Category: Dead Cells (Video Game)
Genre: Exhaustion, Fainting, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Overworking, Past Abuse, Past Torture, Psychological Trauma, Sleep Deprivation, Sleepiness, Spoilers, Unconsciousness, Vulnerability, our lord and savior the traumatized science lizard, the Collector looks vaguely like an Argonian Because I Said So, the king is a monster, worried friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:21:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26724334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SwoodMaxProductions/pseuds/SwoodMaxProductions
Summary: Rest is a necessity, not a luxury. Even for brilliant alchemists.In which the Collector, working himself beyond his limits, faints in front of the Beheaded, who’s understandably worried and makes him think about his amorphous friend’s nature and eventually go the fuck to bed.
Relationships: The Beheaded & the Collector
Comments: 4
Kudos: 32





	No Such Thing as Perpetual Motion

He didn’t know how long it had been. Since the King’s betrayal. Since the Malaise. Since he’d last slept. Athena’s time loop made all of that very complicated. Ah, but she wasn’t Athena anymore, was she. She was only the Time Keeper now, inhumanly focused and threatening to break down from stress. A broken shell of her former self. He had known her to even joke a bit, back before the Malaise, before some of the guards could be seen throwing themselves from the rooftops in hopes that Hell would be preferable to the doomed island. She’d once told him a hilarious joke about a spatial disruption that walks into a bar and…

Focus. He had to focus. He was the last shred of hope. The motley settlements of survivors needed him. He tried to turn back to his research, but his exhausted mind just couldn’t grasp onto his own words.

The Collector got up when he heard the familiar sound of something barefoot and excited approaching, bracing himself against his tank of Cells he’d set down on the floor as the Prisoner burst into the room to present him with the spoils of his travails.

“Ahhh… lovely… love… ly...”

His head was swimming. Focus! No,  _ focus! _ Everything just seemed so far away… so heavy…

“...Ah…”

And, with the Prisoner looking on in shock, the poor Collector’s overworked body and mind gave out on him. Glassy eyes rolled up in their sockets, and his rail-thin body crumpled backward, too weak to make any effort to stop himself. His talons twitched, then slowly went limp, as though he were so exhausted that it took his own extremities a few seconds to realize he’d finally fainted.

His hood had fallen away as he connected with the floor, revealing a vaguely lizard-like face, sunken-eyed and mouth slightly ajar. The idea that he might look vaguely familiar was quickly pushed out of the Prisoner’s mind by his almost frantic concern for the Collector. 

He patted the mysterious researcher’s leathery face. The Collector’s head simply lolled pitifully with every worried nudge, and the Prisoner was subconsciously becoming more and more uncomfortably aware of how  _ frail _ the Collector seemed, gaunt, almost always nervous, and now helplessly sprawled on the floor of his laboratory like a discarded ragdoll. Now more than ever he wanted a voice.

A small moan, and the Collector shifted a bit. He was alive. Unconscious, but alive.

The Prisoner remained crouched by the Collector’s head, watching intently for any sign that he might be waking up. The blue-skinned entity lay inert for a short while, until an impatient, but tentative poke from the Prisoner elicited a small gasp and a flutter of eyelids.

The Collector lifted his eyelids with a bit of difficulty. He blinked up at the Prisoner, disoriented, before weakly attempting to get up. It was absolutely  _ mortifying _ to realize he’d fainted like that, and worse, that someone had  _ seen! _

The Prisoner’s hand darted to his shoulder, pinning him down. He looked the Collector in the eyes and pointed to the makeshift bed in the corner, that had sat empty for who knows how long.

This… This was unexpected. He’d fainted in front of the King once. He didn’t remember much about the affair— the Hand of the King had, er, swiftly returned him to unconsciousness soon after he woke up. But here was the Beheaded, created from the blood of the King to house his mind,  _ worried. _ Waving a blue-tinted hand in front of his face. Helping him up with a gentleness that he hadn’t thought the homunculus capable of.

He may have been unable to speak, but his point came across crystal clear. The Collector semi-begrudgingly curled up and let himself sink into his ragged little nest.

But… something felt… off. His hood. The Prisoner had seen his face! And… and… he didn’t show any signs of recognizing him. The imperious, cruel gaze of the King that had once terrorized him was nowhere to be found. Looking down at him was something else, some _ one _ else, shaken by his sudden collapse, concern shining out alongside the magenta and gold light from his eye as he tilted his semi-immaterial head as though to ask if he was alright. 

“...Thank you. I… I just… need some rest…”

His eyes were already starting to slip shut again. This time, with the Prisoner there to make sure he slept and not take no for an answer, the exhausted scientist closed his eyes and let his mind be overtaken by blissful sleep.

Satisfied with the Collector’s slowed, even breathing, the Prisoner placed his latest found blueprint beside him. He could examine it when he was awake. 


End file.
